By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald
DENVER — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers want to block prosecutors from learning anything about his activities in solitary confinement at Supermax — the nation’s toughest federal prison — according to new court filings.
The documents unsealed yesterday reveal that on Oct. 13, four months after Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for the Boston Marathon bombings, Assistant U.S. Attorney William D. Weinreb demanded access to Tsarnaev’s Bureau of Prisons records.
“The records in question are not privileged, confidential or work product. They are, on the contrary, records that are routinely obtained by prosecutors either automatically or upon request,” Weinreb argued. “Tsarnaev is essentially asking this court to apply different rules to him than apply to the other 200,000-plus inmates in federal custody.”
Tsarnaev’s lawyers countered that who Tsarnaev meets, speaks with and writes to remains “privileged and confidential defense information.”
The documents include an August 2013 Justice Department memorandum to the Bureau of Prisons setting terms of Tsarnaev’s pre-trial confinement. It notes that within one month of his capture, Tsarnaev’s “widespread notoriety” had drawn “nearly one thousand pieces of unsolicited mail.”
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